The use of facsimile transmission and reception equipment has become widespread. Facsimile machines are often stand-alone units, allowing the transmission and reception of facsimile-encoded data, representing the contents of documents, over public telephone systems to a compatible unit connected to the telephone system at the telephone number to which the transmission is directed.
To further enhance the usefulness of facsimile equipment, systems and devices exist which allow the transmission and reception of facsimile data through a computer system. In the receipt mode, the computer is programmed to identify an incoming signal as having facsimile data, provide the necessary "handshake" with the transmitting unit to allow facsimile communication to be established, and receive the transmitted data in a page image form, either storing or printing out the images as required. Similarly, a computer facility configured to duplicate the functions of a facsimile machine in the transmission mode institutes a call to a receiving unit, establishes communication with the unit through the handshake, and transmits a data stream corresponding to page images in the recognized facsimile format for reception by the receiver.
Many organizations utilize shared computer resources in a network environment. In such a case, an incoming facsimile message received by the principal or network server computer normally cannot be automatically routed to the recipient. Rather, the message is received at the primary location and is manually redirected to the intended recipient. Because a facsimile message is received as a graphics image, duplicating the "look" of the source document, the information appearing therein cannot normally be read and interpreted by a computer, and thus cannot be utilized to determine the recipient such that automated redirection can be accomplished. While various mechanisms have been developed for the interpretation of written data, including optical character recognition techniques and other interpreting algorithms, such systems either require significant additional equipment or significant computing power. In addition, such systems normally do not have the flexibility necessary to accommodate the wide variety of writings, both machine and hand-generated, to insure accurate interpretation of the data and redirection as may be required.
It is accordingly a purpose of the present invention to provide a methodology which allows a facsimile message to be automatically routed to an intended recipient on a multi-user network.
Yet another purpose of the present invention is to provide a methodology where user identification numbers may be incorporated in a facsimile transmission compatible with currently existing standards.
Still another purpose of the present invention is to provide a methodology whereby a user identification number transmitted in conjunction with a facsimile communication may be located and utilized by automated data processing equipment to route or otherwise process the transmission in a desired manner.
An additional purpose of the present invention is to provide a methodology which allows an identification code to be applied to a facsimile transmission in a manner which does not affect or utilize the data image portion of the transmission, and allows the code to be extracted from the transmission without degrading or otherwise affecting the other transmitted data.
A further purpose of the present invention is to provide such a methodology which maintains compatibility between facsimile transmission and reception equipment according to CCITT standards.